iSAYSO
Financial oversight of religious, cultural, ethnic, migrant, and community organisations
Foreign funding, public funding, tax treatment, and financial oversight of religious, cultural, ethnic, migrant, and community organisations
To: DIA Charities Services; Inland Revenue; MBIE; Treasury; New Zealand Police Financial Intelligence Unit; AML/CFT supervisors; Ministry for Ethnic Communities; Ministry of Social Development
Subject: OIA request – foreign funding, public funding, tax treatment, and financial oversight of religious, cultural, ethnic, migrant, and community organisations, 2020-2025
Kia ora,
This is a request under the Official Information Act 1982.
This request is not asking the Crown to target any religion. It asks whether religious, cultural, ethnic, migrant, and community organisations receive public funding, foreign funding, charitable tax treatment, settlement support, security support, or other state benefits, and what oversight, disclosure, AML/CFT, extremist-financing, foreign-influence, and public-safety safeguards apply.
For clarity, this request is not limited to one religion. It applies to all religious, cultural, ethnic, migrant, and community organisations, including churches, mosques, temples, religious trusts, cultural trusts, community associations, migrant organisations, settlement organisations, and charitable entities.
I request information for the period 1 January 2020 to 31 December 2025 concerning foreign funding, public funding, charitable status, tax treatment, financial oversight, and AML/CFT monitoring of religious, cultural, ethnic, migrant, and community organisations operating in New Zealand.
Please provide:
1. The total amount of government funding, grants, contracts, subsidies, settlement funding, community funding, security funding, social-cohesion funding, or other public money paid to religious, cultural, ethnic, migrant, or community organisations from 2020 to 2025.
2. A breakdown by:
• organisation name;
• legal entity name;
• charity registration number, if applicable;
• religious, cultural, ethnic, migrant, or community purpose stated by the organisation;
• amount received;
• funding agency;
• funding programme;
• purpose of funding;
• year paid.
3. The number of registered charities operating as religious organisations, religious trusts, mosques, Islamic centres, churches, temples, cultural trusts, ethnic trusts, or migrant community organisations, broken down by year and entity type.
4. Any records showing foreign donations, foreign grants, overseas transfers, overseas sponsors, overseas religious bodies, foreign governments, foreign foundations, or overseas-linked funding received by registered religious, cultural, ethnic, migrant, or community organisations, where held.
5. Any records showing whether foreign-funded religious, cultural, ethnic, migrant, or community organisations are subject to AML/CFT, charities, tax, foreign-interference, counter-terrorism financing, or national-security monitoring.
6. Any policies, risk assessments, audits, compliance reviews, investigation summaries, or ministerial briefings concerning:
• foreign influence through religious, cultural, ethnic, migrant, or community organisations;
• extremist financing;
• terrorist financing;
• money laundering risks;
• overseas funding of religious institutions;
• use of charities for political, ideological, extremist, or foreign-influence purposes;
• risks to social cohesion or public safety.
7. Any records showing whether government has assessed the public cost, public benefit, or public-risk profile of funding religious, cultural, ethnic, migrant, or community organisations.
8. Any records showing whether public money has been used for:
• mosque security;
• church security;
• synagogue security;
• temple security;
• religious-school support;
• migrant settlement services;
• ethnic community programmes;
• anti-racism or social-cohesion programmes;
• religious or cultural education programmes.
9. Any records showing whether organisations receiving public money are required to disclose:
• overseas donors;
• political or religious affiliations;
• foreign government links;
• ideological affiliations;
• trustees, directors, or controlling persons;
• beneficial owners;
• related-party entities;
• overseas parent bodies.
10. Any records showing enforcement action, warnings, deregistration, investigations, referrals, suspicious activity reporting, or compliance concerns involving religious, cultural, ethnic, migrant, or community organisations from 2020 to 2025.
11. If any information is not held by your agency, please transfer the relevant part of this request under section 14 of the Official Information Act 1982 and identify the agency likely to hold it.
This request is made in the public interest to understand whether criminal offending, enforcement outcomes, public funding, foreign money, financial oversight, and public-safety safeguards are being measured and applied consistently and transparently.
Tracy